Hey, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. There is no new episode this week, and so I am re-releasing
one of my favorite episodes from the past as a sort of TBT, throwback Thursday, throwback
Thanksgiving episode. This was recorded with me and one of my best friends, Len Tai, a
couple years ago, and it's one of my favorite examples of a great Indie Hacker story.
What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from IndieHackers.com, and you're listening to
the Indie Hacker's podcast. On this show, I talk to the founders of profitable internet
businesses, and I try to get a sense of what it's like to be in their shoes, how to make
decisions both at their businesses and in their personal lives, and what exactly makes
their businesses tick. And the goal here, as always, is so that Len's making me laugh
here. The goal here is always so that the rest of us can learn from their examples and go
on to build our own successful internet businesses. Today is a special episode. I'm here with Len
Tai, the founder of Key Values. What's up, Len? Len is a really good friend of mine.
We met in college 12 years ago. We moved to San Francisco together eight and a half, nine
years ago, back in 2010. I think it's safe to say that Len is my best friend. I'm also
a mentor, advisor, whatever you want to call it, to your business, Key Values. So I've
been there since the very beginning, two years ago, when you started the company.
Most of the day, and I remember very distinctly you saying that your goal was to eventually
come onto the Indie Hackers podcast, which I had just started two years ago as well.
And you were like, you've got to make some money first.
Yeah, you've got to make some money. And now you have. Why don't you tell listeners how
much money you're making with Key Values?
Yeah, so the last quarter, Q4, I did about 80K in sales. And this quarter, I'm on track
to do the same or even better. Last week, I did 25K in sales. I tell you that. It was
like a really, really...
You've been telling me all week.
True. It's just been like a really awesome, energizing week.
So you're on track. It's sort of like $300,000, $350,000 a year run rate with your revenue.
What are your expenses look like? How much money do you spend to keep this business running?
Not much. I mean, I don't have employees. I don't have an office. I work out of here
from home or school out of Oliver's office. My husband's, I pay for subscriptions, posting.
Like a few hundred dollars a month. It's almost all profit with your business.
You are a solo founder. You don't have employees. You don't have an office. You're a first time
founder. This is the very first company you've ever started in two years. You're already
at the point where you're making way more than you made as a developer.
For sure.
How does it feel?
I mean, it's surreal, but it's also the new normal. But no, I'm really proud. And I remember
two years ago, you were like, if you just do anything, you show up every single day,
it'll happen. I was like, promise? You promise. And you're like, I mean, I don't promise.
No guarantees.
I know. You're like, I'm not writing this down. But yeah, I mean, if you just show up
for two years, it'll happen. And I mean, you weren't wrong.
And it's been two years. I think one of the cool things about your story is that you are
not what I would describe as a business guru. You're not devouring startup essays and books.
You're not reading on the philosophies of sales.
I feel like you're calling me out right now.
It's true, though. It's like, this is how you identify.
I'm definitely not. I'm not.
And yet your first time out of the gate starting a business, you've achieved more success than
I ever had than most people I've talked to. And I think there are a lot of special, unique
things about key values that make it just a really good business and that sort of contributed
to your outside success.
So I really want to get into those details. But before we do, why don't you tell people
what key values is, how it works, who uses it, and why?
Yeah. So key values is a website that helps software engineers find jobs based on their
values. So if you're an engineer and you want work-life balance, you want to contribute
to open source. And I don't know, maybe you hate going to meetings. You would go to key
values, select those as tags and filters, and you'd find teams that share those values.
And then you get to learn about companies before committing to the long and exhausting
interview process.
And how does your business model work? How do you make money with key values?
Yeah. So it's not a recruiting platform. There's no placement fees or contingency model. It's
a subscription model. So companies pay me. I never charged. Engineers never would. Companies
pay me a flat fee for the year and to generate the content and list their page on key values.
Okay. So it's super straightforward. Let's get into the story of how you started it.
We're going to go way back into our history. Do you remember when we first moved to SF?
Or do you remember even before that in college, where I was always obsessed with the startups?
I was obsessed with coding. You were on a totally different spectrum. You were, I think, neuroscience?
Yeah. I was brain and cognitive sciences. I was... goodness. It's so weird to think
back. It's like everyone thought you were the weird one. And now, living in San Francisco,
it's like everyone's in this space. But yeah, I remember you would always be coding at parties
and whatnot. People would literally be chugging beers behind you. And you'd drink a beer and
then go to your computer and code. But no, in college, I was brain and cog. I always
wanted to be a professor, my mom, my dad, my sister. They're all academic professors.
So even before I got into college, I knew for certain that that was my calling. And
so in college, I was laser focused on doing research and making sure I got good grades
and everything that set me up for success for that path. But yeah, and then when we moved
to San Francisco, I was doing that. I went to UCSF to get my PhD in neuroscience. You
were still coding. You've been so consistent. I've had so many life changes. And you've...
I mean, you too, but more or less, it's linear. But yeah, and then when we first moved, I
remember you were like, I don't know if you were in... you were in YC...
I hadn't gotten into YC. We moved to San Francisco and I didn't have a job. My plan
was I'm going to somehow get into Y Combinator.
Got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I did while we were...
I remember living together and you would go to Mountain View and I was like, what the
hell is in Mountain View? And you went to the thing that was two letters. I literally
didn't even remember that it was called YC. I was like Z, W, whatever. I was just totally
not in that world. And I was just cleaning up mouse poop, doing surgeries, wearing booties,
doing lab work.
Do you remember the summer before or two summers before we actually moved to SF, you had an
internship and you brought me to your lab where you're working with your sister and
you're showing me...
What?
Yeah, you're showing me all the surgeries.
Oh, in Emeryville.
Yeah, in Emeryville. You're showing me... because I had no idea what you did. And you were like...
Did we show you the animals?
Yeah, you're literally like doing brain surgery on the rats.
Yeah. I don't remember that. That's so crazy.
It was nuts.
Yeah. So yeah, I've been doing it for a long time, so I'm wiping my nose. Yeah, but two
years in I was just not into it anymore, which was... I think you had already moved out at
that point, but we were definitely still good friends. But yeah, the path of being a professor
was my identity for so, so long. And then, yeah, I just realized... I was crying a lot.
I was so unhappy. I wasn't sure if I missed Boston, if I missed my friends, if I didn't
like my project, maybe I didn't like my... I don't know. Some source of misery somewhere.
And it took me a while to figure out what it was, but ultimately it was just that I wasn't
doing something that I loved.
Yeah. I mean, you cried a lot when we lived together. I don't know what it was. It was
a whole bunch of random stuff, but I do remember always thinking of you as somebody who followed
in your sister's footsteps. Because your sister was like...
Totally.
What? Six years older than you?
Seven years older. Yeah, I have one older sister. I mean, you know Kay really well,
but Kay and I are super close and she's always been like this mentor role model for me. And
she's a professor at MIT in neuroscience. But yeah, we wanted to do it together. My
sister and I would be like, we're going to start an institute together someday, which
was actually not... I mean, definitely ambitious, but that was our North Star. So it was a really
big deal when I decided to not continue down that path. And it was like... I mean, it was
really hard on my family. It was really hard on me. And it was definitely by far the most
difficult thing I've ever done in my life. And I talk about it a lot though, because
it's also a huge part of my identity. I mean, honestly, in a lot of ways, it's still behind
the ethos of key values, where it's just like, life is just way too short to do something
you don't love. And if you're miserable every single day doing your work, get the fuck out,
like quit, do something else. And I think it's scary when you're older in your 20s and
your 30s and beyond to change careers, but just do it. I think that that's where that
came from.
Yeah, you say that, but it was pretty hard for you to quit.
Oh my God, I cried so, so much. Yeah. Also, I cry a lot.
Yeah, there was a lot of that.
It was a big decision, because that was your whole life up until that point.
And it was really hard. But yeah, and then I guess at some point, I knew though, actually,
people always talk about eureka moments, like aha light bulb switches. And I've never experienced
that. I thought that was just a nice thing. But I remember sitting in this talk a post
doc was giving about the research progress. And I was eating this bagel, it was like 8
30am, the bagel of stale. It was so tired and it was so boring. And I just literally
had this aha moment when I was like, I don't have to do this. No one's making me do this.
This isn't a life that I have to live, so I can choose. And I choose that I'm out.
You chose to drive sidecar.
No, no, no, no, no, that's not okay. So it's true after I dropped out of grad school. I
had no plan, which was obviously really scary. Everyone's like, if you don't know, you're
going to have something lined up. But I just knew that I wouldn't be able to figure out
what I wanted to do if I was doing something that was draining me every day. Stop laughing.
I did not quit grad school to become a taxi driver. But after I dropped out, I didn't
have a plan. I barely had any money saved. I was living, I was making, when you're in
grad school at that time, it was like a $30,000 stipend. So I was really poor. So I had to
make money. Yeah, sidecar was this thing that was the competitive lift. UberX didn't even
exist yet. And yeah, someone was like, hey, you have a car, you should drive for sidecar.
And I was like, cool, I need money. So yeah, it was basically a cab driver.
People are pretty good at it. People like you. I mean, you're probably the most extroverted
person I know. And so you're driving this car around SF. People are giving you tips
for being a good driver.
Yeah, the sidecar was donation based and people were super generous at the time because it
was like a novel idea. And yeah, for sure, everyone's response was like, okay, one, you're
a woman, two, you're young, three, you speak English. Everyone was always like, your English
is so good. Whoa, you're young. Wait, you're a woman. So it was always like, it was just
really jarring at the time. I think it's not so, it's not weird or abnormal now. But back
then, it definitely was.
You weren't like the other drivers at all.
Yeah, for sure. Everyone's like, whoa, you're an American. That's weird. Why are you doing
this? But yeah, it was a great, honestly, it was a really fun job. I met so many different
people. I really got to know my city. But yeah, it was a fun job. I did that for a while
and that definitely like funded my life until I got a real job. But yeah.
I mean, you did a ton of stuff back then. I remember I was super focused on the startup
that I'd gotten into who I see with and I was working all the time. And I felt like
every time I turned around, you just met some new person who had gotten you into some totally
new job. Yeah, during sidecar, I also had this like few months stint where I was producing
EDM concerts and it was so random. I met these two DJs from Burning Man and they like I'd
fly out to Boston and Rhode Island and we like produce these concerts, like massive
concerts for like Steve Aoki and Big Sean. That was also really, really fun. But I knew
that wasn't what I wanted to do forever either. And so what did I do? I quit again. It's a
common theme. And then I went and backpacked in Southeast Asia, like the classic soul searching
journey. Yeah, I did that for months and it was actually really like that was hard too.
Cause I was around Christmas time and I just dropped out of grad school still. My parents
was, it was uncomfortable. Like my family was not, they wanted to be supportive, but
it was just so hard for them to be. And then I came back to San Francisco and started working
at Homejoy, which is an on-demand cleaning company, which is really cool and well-funded.
But at the time my parents were like, holy shit, our daughter dropped out of a PhD program
in neuroscience to work at a cleaning company. We have failed. I think they thought I was
clean. I don't know. I don't know what they thought, but they just were like really, really
worried and kicked off like a panic. And then I think Homejoy got like written up in Forbes
at one point. And my parents were like, Oh wait, what is this? Maybe it's okay. But yeah,
that was an interesting having to explain that. Tell me about getting the job at Homejoy. How
did that happen? I don't know if you know this story. So there were some friends,
one of the co-founders of Homejoy went to MIT was your class, I think. And there were several other
like MIT people. They weren't like close friends of mine, but they reached out and it was because
I went to your Pi reunion. MIT has this reunion 3.14 years after you graduate. So nerdy in Vegas,
I think it's always in Vegas. And I crashed the year above me and they remembered me because I
was like really bossy this one day. Cause that was a long story. There was like, everyone's putting
their stuff in my friend's cabana and then the people at the club or were like, you can't do
this. There's too many people in your cabana. And so I just like stood on a table. It was at the
pool and I was like, Hey, everyone, you gotta get your shit out of here. They're going to throw it
away. And yeah, this guy who was, was like, Oh, she's bossy. And he like recalled that memory and
hit me up to be like, Hey, I remember you like bossing people around. You want to be a manager?
So that's, that's literally how I got that job. I remember being super excited that you got this
job because at MIT, none of my friends were programmers. When we moved to SF, I didn't have
any close friends who knew anything about the startup scene. And meanwhile, you were basically,
you know, on this weird journey, doing all sorts of stuff. And you ended up at this high growth,
like Silicon Valley startup. One of the hottest companies for sure. I was so excited. I was like,
Len, you're finally in the startup world. And it had been completely alien to you before that.
What was it like being at Homejoy? Homejoy was an awesome experience. I remember I tried to get you
to work there. I was like, it's fucking awesome. Join us. And you were like, hell no. But yeah,
Homejoy was my first real job. It was, I mean, I was getting paid, like, I think I started at 65k.
But at the time, I had just come from 30k a year. And so it was like more than double. And it was
just all the things that I was craving that I wasn't getting from grad school. It was like
super fast paced, super high energy. It was like really social. I was traveling a lot when I first
started. It was just everything that I needed. And yeah, it was a journey, man. We all worked
long hours. I don't know. It's 80, 90. I feel like there was definitely a couple of weeks where we'd
work 100 hours a week. We slept at the office. And I know looking like saying this, a lot of
people are like, that sounds awful. But it was really, really fun for us at the time. I think
we were just super passionate. And whenever you're passionate about something, it's always,
there's nothing better than finding other people who are equally passionate and about the same
thing too. So yeah, Homejoy was a really good experience. I was a manager. So that meant,
it was like my first job. It was like 24, 25. I was managing 150 plus people. It was like crazy how
much work experience I got crammed into those few months. So Homejoy was basically Uber for
home cleaning. You would use a service to book people to come into your house. My memories of
you working at Homejoy were basically that it was this rocket ship startup. Yeah. I didn't know
very much about it. I know they kept raising more and more money. I remember going to some party you
invited me to where it's like they just raised $40 million and there was some elaborate party.
That's where all the money went. Yeah. And then of course it ended up folding, but for a long time
Homejoy, it was a rocket ship. In my 18 months there, I saw three offices. We had to break
leases and keep going to a bigger office because we kept growing. I think it was like we were just
in San Francisco and maybe Seattle or something when I joined. And then we were in over 30 cities
across North America and Europe when I left. It was pretty wild. Why'd you leave? It's a really
good question. My heart just wasn't in it at some point. I loved it until I didn't. It wasn't the
long hours or anything. It was just the direction. My vision for Homejoy was that it was more of a
matchmaking service, which is super foreshadowing for key values. I think I just like making good
connections. But in order to be the Uber for anything, the idea for the direction of the
company was that it didn't matter who showed up to your house. You'd get the same quality clean.
And in my mind, I was like, that's not possible because letting someone into your private space
for four hours unattended when you're not home is a really big deal. There's no way that you can
make two people do that same job the same. So yeah, I think when I realized that the direction
of the company wasn't something that I was really passionate and excited about, it was time to go.
I left before things started looking bad and everyone thought I was so crazy for leaving.
In fact, everyone was like, oh, where are you going? Are you going to go start your own company?
And it pissed me off actually at the time because I felt like everyone was just projecting their
Silicon Valley dreams onto me. And I was like, no, I'm not. If you want to do that,
you should, but stop trying to... I don't know. It was a weird time.
It was weird too, from my perspective, because you had been so adamant about trying to recruit me.
I mean, you were like Homejoy's biggest champion, the biggest cheerleader.
I would go there sometimes and work on my laptop because you were trying to get me to work there.
And I never even really considered it, but to see you sort of 180 from
everybody should work here, it's so great to, hey, I'm not really feeling it.
And eventually quitting was pretty shocking.
Yeah, I mean, I think it just was every... I mean, to be fair, everything in that
when you're working at a high growth startup is accelerated. It wasn't like overnight.
It was probably the last six months where me figuring out that it wasn't exactly what
I wanted it to be or what I thought it once was. And of course, you can't...
I think this is something I see commonly now, actually relevant to key values,
is that people say, they're like, things used to be X, Y, and Z.
And that's just the nature of startups. It's impossible for a company to stay the same way
from 15 employees to 150 employees. It's just, it's impossible. But yeah, it grew.
And I outgrew Homejoy. Or maybe Homejoy outgrew me, I'm not sure.
But it just, we started diverging. So anyway, you quit Homejoy. Homejoy exploded
and Volda is a company sometime after you quit. So it was a good move.
Yeah. What did you do after that?
Yeah, so I didn't, as always, I didn't know what I wanted to do next. I just knew that I
didn't want to keep working at Homejoy. I went to Machu Picchu and hiked in Patagonia,
did more backpacking, soul searching. And that's when I decided that I wanted to learn how to
code, which I thought you'd be excited about. But then when I told you, you were like, nah,
man, I don't know. I don't know.
I spent years trying to get everybody I knew to learn how to code. I taught my brother to
code. I helped one of our mutual friends, Christian, who's now an engineer at Slack,
learn how to code. And I never thought you would actually say yes.
I know. That's rude. You were always, you'd always been, even in college when I was like,
no, no way, no chance, like falling on deaf ears. But then yeah, you've been telling me to learn
how to code. Oliver, my boyfriend at the time, now husband was also like, you should learn how
to code. I think everyone should know how to code. And so I spent like two months really
thinking about it. And I was like, all right, guys, like, you're right. I want to learn how to
code. We were both shocked. And then both of you were like, oh, you know, I don't know if you're
gonna like it. Like, I don't know. It was so weird.
Well, I think, you know, you said it earlier at Homejoy. One of the things you liked about your
job was that you talked to so many people, even at Sidecar, you were constantly talking to people
being a programmer. I was kind of worried that like, you might not know what you were getting
into. Like you might be too solitary, too boring for you. But it doesn't have to be. I think there's,
yeah, it's something I think of all the time. Just like, I am really extroverted, but I also do like
alone time, especially when I'm working. So it's this weird trade off. I mean, your concerns were
valid. You're like, you're gonna hate coding and sitting still all day, looking at a computer, not
talking to anyone, but there's, it's still social. So tell us about this process of how you learned
how to code because a lot of people listening in are considering this process themselves. Should
they learn how to code before they start a business? What did it look like for you?
I didn't, so I knew I wanted to learn how to code. I just didn't know how I wanted to learn.
And after much thought, I knew that I wouldn't be able to self teach. Like, you know, Christian,
for the most part, our friend, he just bought, he like literally just bought a bunch of textbooks,
like fat textbooks, read them and just learned himself. And that's just not my learning style.
And so I knew that I wanted to do something like a bootcamp. So I did something called Dev Bootcamp.
And I want it to be in person. I want to, you know, like have experts who knew all the answers
to my questions, be able to answer them when I asked them. And I didn't need to not feel guilty
asking them 100 questions every hour. And I wanted to have other people who are learning with me.
So yeah, that's, I did a bootcamp until I quit that. Until you quit the bootcamp too.
I remember all the complaints that you had about this bootcamp, maybe a few weeks in or a month
and a half and where you were, I think moving a lot faster than a lot of the other people who
were learning to code because you were sort of full-time all in. This is the only thing you're
focused on. So was everyone else, which to this day, I was just like, I think I honestly got
unlucky, but like people in my cohort, in my particular cohort just did not have urgency,
but it was like, it was expensive. It was like $14,000 or something. And you know,
no one's making money during that time. Everyone's learning. And I obviously wasn't
making, I didn't have that much saved from grad school and from home joys, really generous
salary. So I, it was just like a huge deal to me and I wanted to make the most of it.
And I felt like everyone else was just like super chill and like, just like go home at six. And I
was like, staying there till 10 PM midnight, trying to learn and make them get my literally
teaching other people in your class what you had learned that week. And you complained to me like,
you're paying the bootcamp money to teach other people to do their job for them.
It was yeah, I know. It's like, you know, people always say like the best way to learn is to teach,
which is true, except for when you're paying to teach people. And I just felt like, at some point,
I was like, this is bullshit. And once I found out that they would refund me, if I left early,
I was like, I just bounced. And also in part, because after complaining, and you were like,
so annoyed hearing me complain, you're like, well, why don't you just quit? And then like,
I'll help you continue learning. And I was like, deal.
Yeah, you ended up coming over, I think every day, or at least a few times a week.
Every day. How dare you? I was very committed. I literally would walk from the mission,
all the way through the tenderloin to your apartment. And I never Ubered or I never
took a lift or anything, because that cost money. I was saving money. And I would just walk through
all like the needles and the bums who were like yelling at mean things to me. And I would sit in
your living room and make you answer my questions. But you were really helpful. I'm always I will
forever be grateful forever that you helped me.
You're a good student. I remember the contrast between helping you learn how to code and helping
my brother. And he was fighting every step of the way. Like I would check in on him after a few
days. Your brother, he's like, fuck you, dude. Like, tell me how to live.
Trust me. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're like more, I think this is one thing that characterizes you
as a founder in general is you're a very humble person. You're not trying to prove what you
already know. You're more just trying to get help from any source that you can.
Oh my God. I don't know how people do that. If you don't know why,
why do you pretend that you know? I'm like, I don't know anything. Help me someone. I'm
lost. That's like more me.
That was a perfect impression of yourself, Len.
How long did it take you to learn how to code and get your first contract gig after you started
coming over to my place? I probably quit in April. I remember I quit dev bootcamp around my birthday
and I was like crying a lot on my birthday. And then I guess my, the first gig was like a shared
gig ish. And then the first real gig I got my own was like in July maybe. But to be honest,
I don't know if I would say like, I knew how to code. I don't know. This is a constant debate.
Like when, at what point does someone know how to code? Right? Like, you're not an expert.
Well, eventually there came a point where you were getting contracts without my help.
Because the first contract I was like, let's get a contract together and we'll sort of work
on it together. And I think that was a cool learning experience for you. At some point,
I think maybe it was January of the next year or maybe even earlier than that.
No, it was earlier. It was at the end of the year. I remember at least like alt school,
I got that gig around Thanksgiving in November of that year. So, and I definitely had some other
smaller gigs before that, like Rosalie T and like Learn-A-Vore, which I got over a tweet.
Like that was that was an awesome that happened really easily. But I was getting gigs on my own,
probably in the summer.
How does somebody go from not knowing how to code to sort of kind of knowing how to code and suddenly
getting all of these contract work from home jobs?
So this is a question people ask me often. And I wish I had a better answer, because I don't know
if it was partially luck or timing or if it was like my luckily I had this network. But for me to
get my gigs in the beginning was kind of random. But the thing I definitely did was tell every
single person that I knew that I was open and available for contract work as a web developer.
And the other thing I did that was really careful to do, because I, you know, like three months
before that I was non-technical. I didn't even know like what languages meant. Like I didn't
know anything. I made sure to let everyone I knew who didn't code know that it was like,
I'm available to make websites. I'm available to write in these languages. Like I made it really
clear and easy for people to remember. Because otherwise people, you know, they just don't know
what kind of engineer you are. And then they like put you in touch with their company. It's like not
a good fit. It's obvious. But yeah, I was really lucky. I think most of my gigs came in from people
that I already knew.
It was pretty inspiring watching you do this, because I had done a lot of contract web development
work. And I guess I always just felt like I got kind of lucky getting jobs. Like I would make
something cool, just for fun, and then get end bound requests. But I didn't really have a network
or tap into it. And then you came on the scene and less than a year after learning how to code,
you were making, I think you were charging like $100 an hour.
Yeah.
All these clients.
I went from like 30. I remember the first time I was like, because in the beginning your,
and this is the advice everyone will give you is like start building side projects so you have a
portfolio. So that when someone reaches out or you reach out, they have something to look at.
And so I think for me, it was like, why don't I just get paid to build a portfolio? Like why
don't I get paid to learn? There are people who just need some base like, you know, the Shopify
example. Like she had a very simple site. She just wanted some help figuring out how to like
make a new landing page or something. Like I should do that and get paid. So I was like,
pay me $30 an hour. It's because I would have done it for free. And it was like a weird thing.
And it's really analogous to charging, doing sales for a company, actually, just like
knowing how much your rate, how much you're worth. And then eventually, yeah, the story of how I
started charging $100 an hour is embarrassing. So I don't want to.
Now you have to tell it.
Do you not remember?
No, not at all.
I did the call at your apartment. You don't remember?
I don't have any memories.
Okay, so this is embarrassing. And I don't know if I maybe want you to cut this out because it's
just like, God, it's so terrible. But basically, I was talking to a recruiter for a company. And
I was like, yeah, I want to say like $80 an hour. But my last client was $100 an hour,
which was kind of true, but it was really short. And then he like paused, which probably wasn't
even longer than half a second, but I'm just so crazy. I was like, but I'll do it for 65.
And then he was like, um, why don't I just pretend the last 30 seconds didn't happen?
And I heard you say 100 sometimes. So why don't I go in and say that you're charging $100 an hour?
Is that okay with you? And I was like, yes, thank you. Sorry. I guess he must have gotten paid
a percentage.
I don't remember this at all.
It was just so embarrassing because I like immediately backpedaled and I was like,
I'll just do it for free. No, I mean, I didn't go that far. But basically, and he helped. He
basically negotiated for me. I didn't need to go. He was on my side. Like, I'm sure he got paid
more if I charge more. So that's how I, but then after that, it was $100 an hour. And then,
yeah, of course, once I started doing, I was like, no, I am totally, this is, that is my
worth. If anything, I should have raised my rate.
But that's amazing. The power of really just code. I mean, you went from poor grad student
making 30 K to operations manager for home joy, making like 60 K learn how to code in an under a
year, you're charging $100 an hour to work from home on whatever projects you thought were interesting.
It's so funny hearing you say it now, because it's like, wow, that sounds magical. But it was
a lot of hardware. It did not feel fast at the time at all. I remember it was just like,
I was getting antsy. I was like, when am I going to start making money? When am I going to start
making money? I'm starting to run out of money. I need to get a job. Like, how do you know you're
ready? Who do you, what kind of gig should I get? Like, and I remember in the beginning,
you were talking me through this. I was like, okay, I need to build up my portfolio, but
I don't have much more time to keep building and learning on my own without getting paid. So
if someone offers to pay me to kind of like simultaneously build my portfolio,
because when you work with a client, that's building your, you know, that's building your
portfolio. Like how low can I go? Because if I'm going to do it anyway, like, why not do it for
$30 an hour? And you're like, no, Lynn, do not. It's way like, you're like, no, no, no.
So I think it's hard to know, but just say a number and take a stab at it. And people can
always say can always negotiate down. Don't do what I did, which is backpedal immediately.
One of the coolest things about how you found jobs, and it really different from the way that
I found jobs as a programmer, because I did a lot of contract work back then. And what I would do
is work on some cool open source project that I thought was fun, and just put it out into the
world. And then people would reach out to me and be like, Hey, can you build this for our company?
And I found like a lot of jobs that way. But you were more of a networker. You just learned how to
code. Yeah, think about it. You had, you flexed your advantage. I did not have 10, 15. You were
like coding when you were an infant. Like, seriously, you're, you're quitting since you
were like, what? Like, yeah, 14, 14. That's fucking crazy. And so I didn't have that. So I
can't lean on that. So my strength at that time was my network. So I leaned on that. I mean,
even watching you network, it wasn't like you were going to networking events. It was literally,
you just talked to everybody you knew. And I distinctly remember this because I was like,
Oh, that's super smart. And Stephanie Halbert, who's been on this podcast, did the same thing
where to get contract work, she just literally told everybody that she knew, Hey, I'm a programmer,
or whatever it is. And I'm open for work. And you told everybody that and people
would just keep that in mind. And when they had interactions, they would think of you and sort of
forge. Yeah, no, it's so it sounds like it's not a very clear guaranteed way to get stuff. But it's
I mean, it's why not. It's definitely like not stupid to make sure everyone knows what you're
doing now. And help generate leads. So it's just sticks out to me, because I gave this talk at a
conference last summer. I think it was called how to get lucky. And one of the big points that I
made was just tell everybody what you need help with tell everybody what you're doing broadcast
that shit. Yeah. And it just gives people the chance to help you out. And I think a lot of
people struggle with like, what is networking? What? How do I leverage? I feel like there's so
many people who want to start businesses around this, where it's like, you need help. And someone
within like a 10 block radius has your answers. Like how do you know enemies? But it's true. I
think if since since no one's cracked the code yet, and there's no product that exists that solves
this problem, hit up all your friends. Like it's a good excuse to catch up with people you haven't
talked to in a long time. I definitely hit up everyone who used to work at home joy and was
like, Hey, what are you guys up to know if you're not there? Like want to help me find a job? And
yeah, they did. Like, I think the first four gigs I got were all two friends. Fast forward, I don't
know, I guess a year after that, I had started and the hackers. Yeah, lots of contract work,
charging 100 bucks an hour, maybe more at some point. And I remember going to your boyfriend
Oliver's office where you would work in sort of a back room. And I would come and work on
any kind of like every day together for months. I felt like I would come and I was super jazzed
because any hackers was brand new. I was getting on the front page of Hacker News once or twice a
month. Yeah, I remember we'd be like, Whoa, look how many people are in your site right now. Yeah.
And then I was super excited about you because like, you're making so much money with
an exciting time. Yeah, you're working on these interesting projects, you're making more money
than you ever have your entire life. Why leave that all behind to you decide to start your own
company? Oh, God, this is like memory lane. So I actually remember a lot of this. So I remember
in December, in January, like the cold rainy months of San Francisco, in 2000 was this must
have been 16 going to 17. I was so into making money because this is honestly I mean, you just
heard my whole backstory. I did not get paid very much at home joy. It was like the first time in
my life that I was making real money and I had never I didn't obviously save any money from my
grad school days. So I was like addicted to just watching that dollar amount grow my baby out for
the first time. And I was working at two full time clients. I was like working around the clock,
worked through Christmas and New Year's. And I was I felt like I was really killing it. And then
it must have been March. Yeah, I worked through in through February.
March was like this crazy storm. It was like a perfect storm of events. So the weather was
getting nicer, which is I know this sounds crazy. But for me, weather really impacts my mood. My
mom had just visited and my mom was in Hong Kong. So I don't see her very often. She was 70 and was
supposed to retire. But she was actually traveling to San Francisco because she was like doing some
talks or something because she actually just made this huge discovery in science. Like I don't know
the I don't know if people care about the details, but she basically made this huge discovery and a
breakthrough in science and was like peaking in her career. And that was just like so inspiring
because my mom's like 70 killing it. Right. And then also at the same time, you, Courtland, were
entertaining this idea of getting acquired. And I was like, what you just started Indiehackers
like eight or nine months ago, what's going on? And all that happened. And I felt like really
inspired. There's all this exciting things happening on me. And then I had no outlet because
like my project ended and my other main client actually had to pause the work that I was supposed
to do. I was I was supposed to do like this huge project that was coming up, but they needed like
four or six weeks to get it started and do paperwork with the third party that they were
using as a long story. But basically like everything was happening. I had all this energy.
I felt super inspired by you and my mom and how's my birthday was coming up. And it was just like,
I just had so much energy and know where to put it. And so yeah, I think I kind of went a little
crazy and I was like, what do I do with my life? I had this whole existential crisis of like, what
do I want? Like, what is the purpose of what is the meaning of my life? What do I want? And I think
everyone. Oh yeah. And I think you and my mom both were like, you should just follow your dreams,
Lynn. Like do whatever you want. Follow your dreams. That definitely wasn't me. Yes, it was.
You were like, you should do what you want. I don't know. Well, you were probably like,
you should start a company because I probably said something very analytical and try to make a...
No, you were like, you should start a side business. You should start a side project.
Have a side project. You were doing indie hackers. So you were like, you should start a side business.
Yeah. So anyways, what freaked me out was just like, I didn't have like a clear dream. And that
was like freaking me out because I was like, oh my God, I'm a shell of a human walking around planet
earth. Dreamless. It was a dreamless state. And I remember I was like seriously manic for a couple
of weeks. And then I realized that there was like three things that I think maybe could count as a
dream because I had sort of wanted them loosely for at least a decade. And they were one, I always
wanted to do an Iron Man. Totally random. Two, I always wanted to start a family and have kids.
And then three, I think I always wanted to like in some way work with my friends in some capacity
and maybe have some type of like the perfect in a perfect world, be so cool to have a business that
you own. I mean, I think everyone knows this, but like consulting is kind of like a gateway drug
into entrepreneurship because you get a taste of the freedom and like setting your own schedule.
I mean, you're like, you get to create your own little world and set your own rules.
So I had been sipping on that for a couple of years and I was like, yeah, I like that. So yeah,
I think I kind of like, I guess dream number three was like maybe starting a company with
my friends or like, I don't know, something to that nature. So yeah. And then obviously,
Oliver, my boyfriend was like, number two, starting a family. Let's not,
don't chase that dream just yet. So yeah, I picked number one and three.
All right. So we're not going to talk about the Iron Man as much. This is a show about
entrepreneurship. Let's talk about dream number three, starting a company, working with your
friends and sort of following, like you said, the gateway drug of consulting into entrepreneurship.
You eventually settled on the idea for key values. How did you get there? If your dream
was as vague as I want to do something and maybe work with my friends, how did you
sort of shape that into the concrete vision that became key values?
I think I like tried to think of a bunch of ideas. They're all really shitty. I wasn't excited
about any of them. I started some like 24 hours later. I was like, I'm over it. And then you were
like, well, maybe you should like find a full-time job because I also was pissed that you had
abandoned me. You were the only like, so I didn't say this before, but the deal was if you helped
me learn how to code, I had to promise that I would try consulting, like not become a full-time
employee. And I was like, deal. So that was, that was how I even started thinking about consulting.
And then here, this whole, like as long as I've ever known you, you're like being an employee
sucks. And then here you are like entertaining, becoming an employee of Stripe. And I was like,
I felt so betrayed. I felt betrayal. It was weird because I'm like, okay, you're leaving me out in
the dust. But yeah, so then I was like, I should look for full-time jobs. And so I spent a week or
two on a job search and it was just so shitty. And I complained about it so much. And it finally,
like always when you're like, all right, Lynn, you've been complaining about this. Like, what,
could you build a business around it? You have this problem. Like maybe you could build a
business to solve this problem. Yeah. And that was, I remember how excited, I was like, I don't
remember exactly the day, but I remember at the end of the day, like running up to Oliver and being
like, I'm so excited about this idea. And he, you know, I probably said the exact same thing,
like multiple days in a row and then just drop those. But this one felt like it really stuck.
What was the problem you had that you ended up building a business to solve?
Well, if you remember, actually, it's so fun. I kind of forgot this detail, but there was part of
me like, well, maybe will you hire me for indie hackers? Like maybe I should work with you or like,
I just like, maybe I should help Oliver with his company. He's the startup founder also,
like that in that way that checks the boxes. So I was also for a couple of weeks, you know,
loosely just seeing what, like what other startups there were. And of course I was looking at like
what my friends companies were doing because then I could then work with my friends. And yeah,
but the process of looking for jobs was so dreadful. So, so, so dreadful. For me, I've always
had a strong affinity for startups, like being scrappy and starting something early. I never
was interested in working at the Googles and Facebooks of the world. But yeah, I couldn't
find any information about these cool startups. And I felt like that was ridiculous because,
you know, I had worked at Homejoy, which was a YC company. All my friends were in the startup
scene. We were sitting in Fideye, which meant like, I don't know, like a 10 block radius. There's
like hundreds of thousands of startups, but I didn't know how, like, how do you know that they
exist? And then of course, you know, people are like go to AngelList and then you see a long list
of companies and logos and not knocking AngelList, but like, you know, it's just a long catalog of
companies with their logo and like, that's it. And I just felt like that they all start kind of
looking, you scroll and scroll and they all look the same and you don't get to know anything about
these companies. And so for me, if you're going to work at a startup, like anyone else, you're not
doing it for high salary. If you are, you're doing it wrong. If you're optimizing for salary,
go somewhere else. But if you're working at a startup, it matters so much who you're working
with because that's like the value. And for me, it just felt so crazy that I couldn't get to know
the people I'd be working with until so much later. And I know this is like, I wasn't, you know, I'd
only been coding for two years. I wasn't, you know, like a super senior expert, but I still feel like
I'm a really good hire. I think that any startup would be lucky to have me because I work really
hard. I'm really scrappy. I'm, you know, really good at learning on the job, like throw me into
any situation. I'll figure it out. And I think I felt a little offended by all of the hoops that
they ask you to, you know, you have to write a cover letter, you have to apply, you do a phone
screen. Sometimes you do a screen with someone who doesn't work at the company. They're like a
third party recruiter. They're not technical. You ask them a bunch of questions. They can't answer it.
You wait a week. They invite you on site. You do a bunch of coding questions like you pair,
you do some whiteboard questions. Then you come on, come back tomorrow. And then you wait another
week for them to decide or give you, like, it's just like, what is all this? And like,
you never even really get to sit down and talk to the people you'll be working with.
And so yeah, this is the pain point. And you were like, well, how do you turn this into a business?
And it was like, I wish there was a resource where I could learn more about what the day-to-day was
like, before I even have to commit to a conversation with these people. Because maybe I don't, it's
not even a good fit. And that's, yeah, it was like, thus key values was born. Yeah. So this is March
two years ago, pretty early on. 2017. And you're like, okay, I want to come on the Indie Hackers
podcast. I think I just started the podcast a month before. I'm like, yeah, not yet, but make
some money. No, you said no. You're not, no, nice try. Yeah, you said if I make money,
once I make money, I can do it. So that was my goal. I remember releasing a podcast episode
around that time. And I can't remember who it was with exactly. But the upshot from the episode was
that it's okay to have competition. It's okay to enter a crowded market. And I remember that was
something that you had been struggling with a lot as you kind of grappled with this initial idea.
You didn't necessarily like the fact that there were other companies already helping developers
find jobs. I wish I can remember the episode. Laura, or? Yep, that's it, Laura. I mean, you've
been circling around this idea. It's like, it was like a theme, a common theme in, in Indie Hackers,
like all these successful founders were like, yeah, it doesn't matter. Like it's good to have
competitors. And it took me so long for that to click. So long. And that was another aha moment.
Like I actually, I remember I was like driving in a car, I listened, I was listening to your ass
on, on my speakers, interviewing someone else. And I like almost, I think I pulled over because
I was like, holy shit, that makes so much sense. Like in every other industry, aside from tech,
there's tons of people like making new sunglasses. I think that was for example,
like there are a lot of other companies that make sunglasses, but people start companies that make
new sunglasses every day. And it's like water bottles, pens, papers, like notepads. That was
for example. Yeah. And the other thing I think that came up over and over again was pricing.
Because we knew that companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, I learned this after
Homejoy. I was like, I'm never like, I don't want to work at a company that sells to consumers again.
I don't want to like, it's just brutal to not sell to businesses. And so you knew like from the
get-go that with key values, if you helped solve this problem, you were going to be making a lot
of money. You could charge your customers thousands of dollars. It wouldn't be like $5 a month. It
wouldn't be $10 a month. It wouldn't be $50. It'd be, hey, you know, we're going to pay you,
Len, $2,000 referral fee because you hired an engineer for us or something like that.
Right, right, right. Yeah. Because I mean, today, hunters and recruiters charge 2030.
I just talked to someone who says they charge 35% of a first year seller. That is wild. They're
placing like executive level. Like that is nuts. So recruiting is definitely like, there's a lot
of money changing hands. That's what you always say. So yeah, I guess I didn't, I didn't even
really thought about it as analytically as you were at the time. And now I'm a business nerd.
So the whole time I was just sort of, yeah, I think it's funny because for me at the time,
I was more like, I want to help people, but I don't want to charge them. And so it was like,
well, there's only two sides on this marketplace. If I'm not charging software engineers, I'm
charging companies. The last thing, and the reason I'm going to all this detail is because
I want to highlight some of the good decisions that you made early on that made key values,
sort of the rocket ship that it's been, even though it's a lifestyle business.
Okay. Well, I was like, whoa, I don't call it a rocket ship.
But it is for you, for you personally. Yeah.
The last thing I think you did that was really good was rather than starting with a product idea,
you didn't say, okay, here's exactly what I want to build. What you did was you started
with the customer. You said, here's the problem that people have. Here's the thing that like,
is a pain point that's very valuable to solve, as evidenced by the fact that money is changing
hands here. And then you went in search of what's the product that's going to fix it.
And after talking to so many other founders, especially first time founders,
it's more common for people to do things the other way. They say, Oh, I've got a great idea
for this thing. I want to build. I don't know who's going to use it. I don't know why they're
going to use it. I don't know if they'll pay money for it. I want to build this thing.
Yeah, you did that for a long time.
But you started off with the problem and then you spent,
I guess it was like a month of you trying to figure out weeks. I just talked to everyone.
To try to figure out what the product should be to solve that problem.
I talked to technical recruiters. I talked to every single person I knew that was an engineer,
which was a lot of people, engineering managers. I was researching dating sites and Myers Briggs.
I wasn't sure what it was or should I administer some questionnaire to help people figure out what
they want and then match them? I didn't know what it was. But it's interesting hearing you always
talk about stuff like this and it's like why it's a good idea. But for me, I was never in
danger of doing it the other way because I'm still relatively new to building. It would take
me a long time to build something. For me, it was like, I have to be fucking sure that this is...
I really have to plan a lot before I come in. Because unlike you, you could whip up a product
in a day and be like, okay, let's iterate. Let's start over. Here's a new idea. For me,
it would take me a lot longer. In no universe would I ever just be like,
let's just start building something and see if someone uses it. I just never...
It took you a long time to get to the building, the key values.
I know. If anything, I probably... I did the other thing too much. Yeah, I remember I was
thinking about the idea and what the product would look like. I also spent a whole week
devoted to picking a company name and you were like, Lynn, start coding.
Write some code, build something.
I hadn't even written a single line of code and I spent so long thinking of the name key
values and I'm glad I did because I fucking love that name.
It's one of my favorite company names of all time.
Thank you. I remember it was almost culture code and you liked it at the time you like
that you're laughing now.
I was just like, it's the name, get the domain, let's go.
I know, but yeah, culture code was already taken so I went with key values.
On this note, it's funny, you remember earlier this week I sent you that screenshot
from the beginning of Indie Hackers where I'm like, oh, Lynn, which one of these names
do you think sounds bad? I said, I'm starting a community website for developers who want to
learn how to build profitable side projects. Which one of these names sounds better?
And I sent you this list of horrible names.
You guys, Indie Hackers was almost wage breakers.
Can you imagine wage breakers?
Probably between IndieHackers.com.
Dreamcatchers, wage breakers, I forgot, they're really bad names.
IndieFounders.com was the second best.
IndieFounders is not bad.
Yeah, it wasn't bad.
But you came up with key values for your own company and at some point you finally
had the vision for what the product was going to look like.
Yeah, and then building it was like a slog because, well, not actually,
I was happy with how much I'd learned. I felt so empowered after, you know,
I spent two years building websites, basically, for other companies as a developer.
So I definitely felt like that was really fun and what I knew.
The design part, though, is really hard. I'm not a designer.
And it took me, oh my God, do you remember the early mock-up?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You were like kind of mean. You're like, uh, pass. Hurts my eyes.
That was your feedback.
Oh, hard no.
Yeah. So it took a really long time designing it. And looking back, I'm really proud that
it looks the way it does. But now with the experience I have, man,
I would love to redo key values someday, but it's just not a priority.
So, but yeah, and then of course getting the companies like that was the really,
that was so hard. It was like, man, it's so fun to look back because now I like can't even,
I have so many companies like inbound reaching out to me wanting to be on key values.
It's hard to remember. There was a time where I was begging companies to let me show up to their
office, interview them. Like I was basically like, Hey, I'm Lynn. I'm going to do free labor for you.
Do you accept? And companies would say no. But yeah, I mean, that took a long time.
It's very analogous to when I first started Indie Hackers and there was nobody on the website.
The website didn't exist. And I was just emailing all of these people, these founders saying,
Hey, will you come on my website and share your revenue numbers? And everyone's like,
fuck no. They're like, who are you?
Absolutely not. Who are you?
Yeah. Yeah. Who's your first person? Who did you, who got, who said yes first?
I had like 10 people. I don't know who, it's a good question. I remember you saying that
you emailed like 50 people and you're waiting. You're like, I hope someone responds today.
And like, no one responds. And I just be like, no, no, no.
But yours was I think a better sell because you were actually telling companies,
Hey, I'm going to help you with your hiring process. And I will come in and put together
a profile that will help you.
Hello. That's what you could have said too. Like you were, this is where my sales skills
come in now. By the way, I learned so much sales in the last year, but this is like,
so for anyone starting out and you're like offering a free service, because that's most
how people usually, you know, get started, you should make sure that you realize you are
providing a service. Like you're doing something for free. If for you and me both,
it's actually really analogous where it's like, Hey, I'm going to help tell your story. I'm going
to help you with branding. It's content. That's going to be quality that you can share.
It promotes you. It's hosted on a third party site. Like this is like you, I mean, yeah,
you probably didn't do that, but I didn't, and to be fair, I didn't really know how to do it either.
Which is why so many people said no. We just glossed over a whole thing, which is
something I don't think we can take for granted, which is that you knew eventually that your
business model would be to charge companies, but in the very beginning it was free. Yeah.
You ended up onboarding companies, charging them zero dollars. Why was that?
Why was that? Well, I mean, it's like, I, if I'm going to launch a site with a bunch of company
profiles, there has to be company profiles. If you go to a site and there's like one company
profile, you're like, cool, bro. Like, do you ever consider that like going to these companies
and saying, Hey, I'm launching a site. It doesn't exist yet. It's going to cost you a thousand
dollars to have a profile. I like didn't even cross my mind. I don't even think you would,
I don't think anyone, well, I can't remember, but no, for me, I was like, hell no, that's going to
take way too long. Doing sales takes time. So if my goal was to get as many companies on as possible,
reducing the friction to get them on is the goal. So yeah, there was this whole plan. It was like,
get enough companies onto key values. And then once there's enough companies,
launch and start getting developers onto key values. And once there's like enough matches,
then start charging people. Yeah. It's like a chicken and egg classic marketplace problem.
Yeah. But I remember I've ended up launching in September of 2017.
It was like 20 companies, 22 companies. And everyone's like, how'd you get those companies?
The answer is it was basically a catalog of all the companies that X home joyers now worked.
And it's like hilarious. But yeah, I just like milked my network again. And I was like, Hey,
I'm like trying to help your company hire which every company is struggling to do. And like,
yeah, let me let me help you do that for free. Free of charge. Come on, say yes.
What's the process of contacting a company and creating a profile for them? Because I think it
sounds well and good when you just say, Oh, I found 22 companies. But who were you emailing?
Who did you talk to? How long did it take? I was so it was a lot of work. I got so many
notes. I see people struggling to get started too. And it's the answer is straight up grind and
hustle. I would show up, I would email, I would call, I would text, I would do cold emails to
the CTO or founder. I mean, I just hit up people at some point. I remember this is a huge hurdle
I got. I was like, am I being annoying if I email three times without a reply yet? And at some point
I was like, fuck it. No, I'm just going to keep emailing. I'm like, I'm just going to be annoying.
Sorry, I'm annoying. I would say it in my email. Sorry, I'm annoying. This is like my fifth email
to you. You haven't responded yet, but just wanted to check in. And eventually some people
would be like, thank you so much for following up, actually. I'm sorry. Thanks for bringing
this to my inbox again and again. I'm interested. Do you remember what some of the first things
you did were to attract developers to your website after you got this first batch of companies
to create profiles? Launching is basically crickets. I posted on indie hackers. I wasn't
really even on Twitter yet, I feel like. I don't know. I mean, there was no developer traffic until
I launched. And then after I launched it was great. And then there was, of course, the, what is it?
The trough of sorrow. The post launched trough of sorrow, which was like so much traffic. And then
where'd it go? Where'd everyone go? Come back. How'd you launch? Yeah, I launched on Hacker News
and on Product Hunt. All of that was kind of a mistake. I actually wrote about all of this.
This is my first post that I ever wrote about key values was on indie hackers because it's so like
everything comes full circle. But yeah, I launched on Hacker News, which to be fair, I like always
knew that Hacker News would be a channel, a distribution channel. So in a lot of ways,
I actually built key values and designed it with the Hacker News audience in mind.
Because you just knew there's a ton of developers there who needed jobs.
I mean, yeah, I mean, even still today, go to the ask thread and it's like,
how do I interview? Or like, how do you learn about companies culture before you join? There's
all these people, people always want to know these things. So I mean, it was a recurring theme.
How'd the launch go?
It went really great, man. I was like, it was like, so high on life that day. I remember being
physically tired from being excited all day. No, it went really great. I mean, I had basically no
expectations. I had never launched anything before. I mean, I guess it wasn't a business yet,
but I never even like worked on a side project long enough to see it through to launch it.
And so yeah, it was only positive things.
So you mentioned that you had a trough of sorrow period after you launched.
For those who don't know, it's basically the shape of this graph where you launched day one,
day two, huge spike in traffic, you're riding a high, you just feel amazing. And then people
leave and you realize that your site isn't that good at keeping people going back.
They're going to come back, right? Oh, no, they're gone. That's it. Cool. Okay. Now what?
Yeah. You know, what's funny is that I thought
naively that like all you needed to do is launch.
I told you that that wasn't enough. I told you that that wasn't enough.
I know. But like, yeah, I guess.
I mean, it was kind of an experiment because we weren't sure whether or not
people would come back. We couldn't know. You were like, no, you know, you were like,
you told me, I think everyone told me, but I just, it just felt like such a monumental,
like rite of passage to, to even launch, like put yourself out there to, to put anything
that you've been building out there, that that's all I could focus on. And then yeah,
like I wake up September 6th, 2017. I'm like, Oh, or like, I mean, there was like a little trail,
but yeah, there was, it was basically as it hats, weird to look back. I don't know. It's so funny.
Like all these things I remember feeling that way. And now it's like, so I just feel like I was so
naive or it's like, it's so cute that I thought that, or that I felt that way.
What'd you do to sort of combat this problem? What were your next steps?
I mean, truthfully, I'm still in it. Like I remember we set a goal. My goal is to have
2000 sessions a day without like, you know, pushing anything without like, I could just
go on vacation and I would have 2000 sessions a day. And I'm still working towards that goal.
Like it's hard work. And this is the part of like just showing up every day for two years.
But content marketing, a little SEO, I launched a side project. I did side project marketing
inspired by the, what was it? Unsplash crew guys. I don't know, but side, this, someone posted on
Hacker News. I don't even, I'm not giving credit, but I saw, we saw this post on Hacker News or
sorry, on indie hackers about someone who had done side project marketing. And I was like, Oh, cool.
Maybe I should do that. Cause content marketing was like, not that fun. And so I built culture
queries, which was this tool. It's still, you can go to it on key values now, but it suggests
good questions for people to ask their interviewers.
So the idea was that developers would come to this thing,
basically use this tool and the process of you helping them ask good questions in interviews,
you would sort of push key values and be like, Hey, by the way, here's some great companies.
That match those out. Yeah, exactly. And then like, you can join my newsletter and all this stuff.
So I think that really helps. But yeah, there's no one fix. It's not like you flip a switch and
it's like, Oh, turn on growth. Yay. It started. It's working. It's just a constant. Yeah. I think
most companies struggle with growth.
It's tough. It's the hard part. And for you, the easy part was growing the company side of your
marketplace. You're really good at convincing people to come onto the key values platform,
especially since it was free, but it was hard to find developers.
Yeah, for sure. And it's still, that's still the case. I think the crux is getting like senior
high quality engineers to visit key values. And it's also tricky because it's not like
indie hackers, but you want people to show up every day or every week. Usually people,
yeah. And then I also, oh my God, I forgot that I also did YC to help. I thought that there was
some, I mean, this is a long story. I don't know. It's a very long story. Let's go into it.
Tell us why you decided to apply at Y Combinator. Yeah. Well, actually, so you might have to remind
me because I'm going to, I'm not going to answer this question. It's a different one. I just want
to say that I never, ever would have started any company or definitely key values without indie
hackers. Because like I said, after my experience at home joy, I was like, uh-uh, this is not for
me. Like I was convinced that the only way to start a company was that you pitched to investors,
you get them to give you money, you hire a big team, and then there's all this pressure to grow
really, really, really fast. And I just like didn't subscribe to that model. And it was only
through you talking to you as a friend, not even like really using indie hackers at the time,
to be honest. But for those months of you just being like, oh, I just talked to this really cool
guy. He's like, I don't know. I'm making something up. I don't remember who was who, but you're
like, I don't know. This is one guy living in the Midwest and he just built this thing and now he's
making 500k a year by himself and he doesn't even work that much. Isn't that cool? And I was like,
yeah, that is really cool. And then you're like, Hey, I met this other guy who like, you know,
he, he blogs a lot and then he started this newsletter and he was like, Hey, people love
my newsletter. Maybe I'll just charge people $3 a month to read my newsletter. And now he's making
40k a month. And I was like, what people do? I was like, holy shit. There's other ways to start
a business. And so for me, that was like always the plan. So the YC thing was like a really random
thing. Like I totally didn't think about doing YC. And then, you know, I talked to someone,
they're like, Oh, you know, applications are due soon. Like maybe you should apply. I was like,
no, no, no. Cause my experience at home joy companies that raise money, not so good.
But yeah, I, you know, I think I got Jedi mind trick. Someone was like, you know,
it's a really good introspective exercise. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. So I fill out the
application. And it really, it honestly was like, I actually recommend everyone fill out
in a YC application. It's just a nice helps people zoom out. Cause you're just so focused.
You're like so close to what you're working on every day. It's nice to like step back and see
it holistically. And then yeah, I got the interview and I remember you, I don't even remember. Did you
tell me not to do the interview? I can't remember your advice. I think I told you not to focus on
the interview until a few days before it was going to come up. Yeah. Yeah. I thought you knew
it would just consume all of your mindset, all of your, that was good advice. That's so true.
So I like, I was like, okay, I got the interview. Won't think about it until like the weekend
before. And then yeah, that went well. I got in and it was at that point I, that's when it was
like, Oh, do I even really want to do YC? Because I thought that they were going to make me be home
joy. And I was so scared of being home joy. Home joy was great, but I just didn't want to like have
that experience and be the leader of that. Yeah. Like the investors, investors in Silicon Valley,
they want to see you going for the goal. It was stressful. Like home joy was stressful.
Like I don't even know what it would have been like to be a founder,
one of the founders for a company like that. So I was so attached to the bootstrapper,
self-funded indie hacker. Is that like the definition of? Yeah. You're an indie hacker.
Yeah. Like that's like to me what the identity of indie hacker was. And so doing YC was like
selling out in a way. And so I don't know. It was weird. Like, I don't know. It sounds
stupid because everyone's like, you got into YC. Like, of course you do it. But for me,
it just, I wasn't, I wasn't positive. But the main reason that I did was like, I am
helping really cool companies who are doing really cool things, talk about them and like
getting on people's radar because people want to know about them. And YC is a network of really
cool companies doing really cool things that no one's ever heard of. So it was like perfect.
And I was definitely open because again, this is like my first time ever doing anything.
I wanted to stay open minded about different ways to run and build the business.
So YC, it's like a three month program. Companies go through it. I regularly hear from people who
go through YC and I felt this myself that it's the most productive that they have ever been.
It's three months. Was it for you?
I think it was. I think during YC, it's just this combination of having a batch of peers
doing the same thing and you've gotten to this like sort of prestigious, you know, institution.
You just all really want to go fast. You want to impress each other. You want to check in with
your partners every week, you know, and show progress for you was the opposite.
Goddamn like, I'm like, that was true for you too. I'm jealous. Yeah, I was not.
It was like the least productive three months of my life. No, that's not true. That's not fair to
say. But I was definitely not nearly as productive as you were or anyone else was.
Why was YC so hard for you?
YC was, I'm not sure how to describe it. YC was really hard for me for a number of reasons.
One of them was just that I was just so, and this is true for everyone, but I just didn't handle it
very well. It was just so overwhelmed by the amount of advice. Like pre YC, I'm in a vacuum.
I have, I'm like in a desert looking for water, water being advice from smart people. And then
you go to YC and you're like drowning in the ocean. There's all these smart people. There's
all the partners are super experienced founders. They have so much good advice to give. But of
course that advice is not like there. A lot of it was conflicting and it just was really confusing
for me. And then of course there was all the pressure of like leaving up to demo day. So you,
you know, YC is three months. You pick one metric and you just draw, like you just focus
a hundred percent to growing that number. And for me, it was like, I could like three weeks in me and
my partners. And like, even talking to you, like we couldn't even agree on what the metric I was
trying to focus on. And it was, then it was like, do I even want to do demo day and fundraise? And
they're like, why else would you do YC? And it was, it was really confusing. It was a lot,
it was a lot of thrash. That's like, I don't know what else to say about it.
It's funny because earlier I was talking about you being such a good student when I was sort of
helping you learn to code. And I think that played into you doing YC because you cared so much about
whatever you thought about learning. I just want an A plus and like, that's so true. I just wanted
to be like an A plus student and anyone who gives, anyone who gives me really good advice. And I
think they're smart. My, it is like ingrained in me to follow the advice, do a good job and then
thank them. Like that is like, I want to make people who help me proud of me. And there was
just way too many people to make proud. I think that was like, it was just like my own internal
issues. I don't know. It's a tough thing for I think any founder, which is that you have all
sorts of advice flying at you from every channel, even if you're not in Y Combinator, even if you
don't have mentors or advisors, you might be reading books or blogs or various videos on YouTube.
And you have to sort of filter out which advice applies to you, which advice you just don't have
time to do. Yeah. And I think some of the advice around like, so I had no experience building a
company. I'd never, I was new to all of that. So it's hard for me to filter because I don't have
any data to pull from, you know, I don't have like, I don't have like a preexisting mental schema or
like rubric to filter advice through because I'm new to this. But the one thing that I did know was
like, I know how I want to live my life and I know how taking investment will make me feel if I have
people to answer to. And I'm like, I don't know. I just, I knew that part. So I don't know. There's
like lots of things going on just like with the tactical advice versus just the eat, like the
religious question of like what kind of company I wanted to build all that together just made for
three months of straight crying. I cried so much. You cried a lot. That's a, I think the religious
part of it is, is big. What do you want to do? Like, what is your actual goal? Yeah. And if
somebody doesn't share the same goal as you, their advice doesn't help. Yeah. Their advice doesn't,
doesn't matter. But it's so interesting. It's like people ask advice and they're so bad at
asking for advice. It's like people always ask like, how do I be successful? Like what the fuck
question is? I hate seeing that question so much. Cause it's like, who like, first of all,
what does success even mean? Like, what are your circumstances? Like, I don't know. It's just like,
there's just like the most vague question. Yeah. What does success look like for you?
It depends completely. I know. And so like, I think, and this is another thing, like it's not
a knock on YC. I'm looking back. I'm so glad I did YC. Of course, if I could do it again,
I would do it very differently, but, um, it was partially my fault too. Like going through YC,
I was naive. I didn't, I genuinely didn't understand that a lot, like the goal of YC is to go to demo
day and fundraise. And I actually, I think if you talk to some partners at YC, they won't even agree
with that statement, but it felt like that in the batch. Like everyone was like, why would you do it?
Do YC if you weren't trying to go to demo day and fundraise. And I was like, oh shit,
I don't belong here. So I don't know. Explain what demo day is and explain, uh,
the story behind you deciding not to get on the stage at the end.
I feel like you should describe demo day. Cause I've never been to a demo day, but
demo day, like nine years ago. Yeah. It's probably really different demo days. Like everyone,
I'm like not even confident. I know. Cause I just dipped before demo day. I didn't go
and I've never been to one since, but every founder or one person from each company goes
on stage. I think it's a 60 second pitch to room full of investors. And you're just trying to get
people to give you money. And I, yeah. And for me, it was like, it was just also conflicting.
Cause you read all these essays from like PG and he's like, there's just conflicting advice
everywhere. Whereas like, if you don't need to fundraise, don't, if you don't need to raise
money and get, you know, like have investors on board, then don't. And so I was like, okay,
I don't need to. I was, I had been prepared this whole time to do this bootstrap self-funded thing
and live super poor and frugal and eat ramen every night. I was like, I was prepared for that.
So I was just confused that other people at YC were still telling me like you should fundraise
now. It'll never be easier. Like you never know, like you might not need the money now,
but you might later and it'll be too late. And it was just like everyone else was so excited
about demo day. It was just really confusing. Why were you so confident that you didn't need
to raise money? Well, cause just the math, like we talked, I don't have burn. I had a bunch of
money saved and I was confident that I would be able to start charging companies soon enough.
And like worst case scenario, I would just like do the bank loan credit card game, worst case scenario,
worst, worst case scenario. And I, but I was like, I mean, I was confident. I, I'm good at living in
San Francisco on 30 K a year. It sucks, but I can do it. I've had years of experience. So I was,
I mean, I just felt confident that I could do it. I wasn't confident in saying it, which is why the
thrashing happened during YC. I think I felt, I think I spent the bulk of YC defending my position
and then it was my fault. Cause I'd be like, maybe I flip flop so much and it must've been so
frustrating for you, including you. Honestly, I'm really, it must've been so frustrating for you.
It was frustrating, but I think it was sort of a process of discovery for you.
Cause you got so many strong arguments from very smart people about here's why you should raise
money. Here's the of going this sort of VC funded path. And you had your own ND hacker instinct
where it's like, you didn't want to raise money and you really wanted to do a lifestyle business
that would make you personally happy. And you were super, I don't know if scarred is the right word,
but you were just cautious after your home joy experience.
Cause you can't ever give up. And I guess like buffer did this. You can give your investors back
the money, but I think for me, it's a pretty permanent decision. Like if you fundraise.
That's it.
Yeah. Like it's, it is hard to go back in time, like buy back your equity from investors. It
doesn't happen super often. And yeah, the hard part was that it's there. All the advice was true
and it just depended on the, on your goals. And that was like a personal question. So I think I
just had a lot of soul searching during YC of just like, what do I want? Cause there isn't right or
wrong answers. And the truth is like, if you raise like from angels, it's not the same as raising
your series A or series B the pressures are different. It's depends on who your, who your
investors are. Like everyone's like, you know, angel, they're really cool angel investors will
help you grow your business. They're like mentors, but I don't know. I just, I felt like it wasn't
for me.
One of the interesting things to talk about here is your financial situation. You mentioned briefly
that one of the reasons that you weren't too concerned with not raising money is in a number
one, you had the money from YC, but number two, you had your savings. You literally spent a year
and a half, two years contracting at a hundred dollars an hour. Yeah. You were living super
frugally, even though you're an SF. And so I don't know what your runway was.
I think it was like two or three years savings.
Yeah, exactly. I definitely had like two years of runway, even especially with the YC money.
So I felt like there's no reason to, and honestly, people really underestimate how much energy goes
into doing demo day and fundraising. And since I'm a one woman show, if I'm spending two months
fundraising, that means no one's working on the product. No one's doing sales. No one's growing
developer traffic. And so like, it was just a really expensive decision to me. And just,
it wasn't, and I know this sounds like all hippy dippy and whatever, but I just think
the best way for me in making decisions is just doing what energizes me. Because I had two years
of runway, it wasn't an issue of like running out of money. It was more a concern that I would get
frustrated or like uninspired, unmotivated and quit. So that was what I was like protecting
against. Yeah. Quitting seemed to always be on the table. It was always something sort of looming.
Like if you don't like this, you'll quit. Yeah. I'm so good at quitting. If I hate something,
I'm going to fucking leave it. Like no questions asked. So I loved home, I'm home dry. Whoa. I did
love home dry. No, I love, I do love home dry, but I loved key values so, so much. And it was
like, I love doing what I'm doing. There's nothing like, it was perfect to me at the time, even like
I enjoyed working on it. And I just wanted to make sure I didn't stop enjoy that enjoyment.
Cause then I would quit. If my heart fell out of it, I would have quit. And so I think for me,
it wasn't like, how do I have enough money to make it? It was like, how do I make sure I enjoy this
long enough to not quit? Okay. So that's the story of an ND hacker going through Y Combinator,
not doing demo day, not raising money while all of your peers are tweeting about how many
millions of dollars they raised. Coincidentally, I was on the YC podcast not that long ago.
And the title of my interview was, your whole goal is not to quit. And that's what you did.
You did the things that you liked and you avoided the things that you didn't so that you wouldn't
quit. What did you end up doing after YC demo day? I mean, even like the week right before demo day,
I just was, I was that Homer Simpson meme where just he like fades into the bushes.
I just wanted a long time. I needed, that was like the, I needed some isolation for real.
But yeah, I think I just went back to focusing on the company. The one there, I mean, there are
definitely lots of good things I got out of YC. Don't get me wrong. But one of them for sure was
that they pressured me to start charging. So during YC, I mean, it was funny. They were like,
wait, you're providing value companies that you have let onto key values for free are hiring
engineers. Like what the fuck Lynn charge them. And there's like, that was a huge debate too of
like, when I should start charging, when's the right time? And we could, I could talk about that
for a long time. Cause I think that's just, there's no, you're looking at me. It ties into like what
was your, it ties into like that whole thing you were mentioning was what was your North Star
metric. And I think going into YC, your North Star metric was I need to get more traffic. Yeah.
Developer traffic is not valuable unless I have developers. And then YC was telling you,
Hey, it's already valuable. You're already providing a service to these companies,
charge them money. Yeah. And so, yeah. So I like very lukewarm efforts was trying to charge and it
was bad. The first like five companies I reached out to, they were like, no. And then other ones
were like, yeah, yeah. You know, like if once it's valuable to us, we'll pay. And I was like,
okay, cool. Like that's a positive signal. But no one wrote me a check until actually is around
this. It's right about now at the end of February, beginning of March. And but they were like, it
was, I didn't even know how much to charge. It was a, it was a long journey for that. And this
basically 2018, I would characterize that as like becoming learning sales.
So walk us through this process of these very first sales calls that you made the very first
companies who paid for key values. How did you get them to pay? How much did you charge them?
Who was saying no? Who was saying yes and why and the whole process?
Yeah, no, it's like, it's hard to describe because it was random AF. The first thing I did was reach
out to companies that were on key values already for free and like had positive feedback for me,
people that had hired and I asked. And I think it's one thing I underestimated is that it's
really hard to get people who had something for free and convert them into paying customers.
And so that was one mistake. I should have just had everyone knew, like everyone that was new,
that was onboarding and starting to charge, but I didn't think about that. And then it was just
kind of looking at other job boards. There are other job boards that, you know,
are like anywhere from 200 to $500 to post per month. And so I was thinking about doing monthly
subscriptions, three months, six months, 12 months. I was experimenting like crazy. People
at YC, I mean, it was cool. Actually other founders, we were all going through the same
thing of price testing and it was like, how are you guys choosing? And one of them is just
straight up throwing out numbers. It's like 1,000, 10,000, 5,000 until someone says yes.
And if someone says yes too quickly, you know, raise it. And yeah, it was literally just like
rant. I should have been a little more strategic, had more structure, but it was kind of just like,
you have to ask. And it forced me to talk to a lot of people about like what value they did find out
of key values. And then there's the whole journey of like onboarding new companies. So at some point
I was like, okay, it's clear that you should just start charging new companies, getting people who
are free to start paying us really hard. And so my process at the beginning was just like any time
a company reached out, I would just send them the same email regardless of the size of the company,
regardless if it was a founder or recruiter emailing me, regardless of how many people they
are trying to hire. Like it was just the same email. And it was like, I think I started with
1,800 for six months and 3,000 for a full year. And yeah, some people said yes. And most people
probably said no. And yeah, but that's one lesson for sure is that I started doing sales calls and
that was much, much better.
$1,800 for six months, $3,000 for a whole year on your platform. I just want to highlight how much
more you were charging than the average indie hacker I talk to you charges for their business.
How much are people charging?
I go to indie hackers meetups and I talk to founders and this is like the most common thing
that I hear is, Oh, I'm going to charge people, you know, $5 or $10 a month for the things that
I build it though. Yeah. Well, people like tend to build these products that they can only charge
five to $10 a month for like, Oh, I've got a to-do list app and no one's going to pay more
than 10 bucks a month for it to do list. And I'm just like, don't build a to-do list app.
Then it's going to be so like the number anyone wants to build a to-do list app.
Why don't you just reach out to Colin and ask him to show you the to-do list app that he built
for years. It's just hard because you need something like a thousand customers to get to
the point where you're even sustaining your lifestyle as an entrepreneur. You're trying to
buy about a month. I did the math. We were like, okay, my goal is 300K. And that's at $3,000 a year.
That's a hundred customers. I think I can do that. Yeah, you can talk to a hundred customers and
sell to a hundred. It might take a while, but I can do a hundred. A hundred is way less daunting
than a thousand. The other thing that's cool is you're pretty much spending all of your time
doing the things that you hear in startup manuals that you should be doing. Talk to your customers,
right? You're talking to them. You're learning how they get value, et cetera. And I think one of the
reasons why a lot of founders don't do these things, partly it's because it's uncomfortable.
You sort of a personality where you like talking to people. So you just naturally good at that.
But partly it's because the product that you built was so simple. A key values is not,
not complicated at all. It's not like the code. It's not like you spent like eight months whipping
together this website. A lot of people could probably build a website in like a week or a
few days. So you didn't really have to. Yeah, the code is not the value. Yeah,
the code is not the value. You didn't have to spend all day, every day fixing bugs,
tweaking your product, et cetera. Like you had infinite time really to just talk to customers
and figure out what they wanted. And so I think you were able to sort of progress in 2018 along
this process of making your product more valuable, figuring out the message, et cetera. Whereas other
people might take two or three times as long to do that because they're spending so much time
writing code. You know, it's funny, actually, I won't say the name, but I just saw on Hacker News
this week that a company in my batch folded and they were like a really technical product.
Yeah, again, not too many details and they're just going to open source it. And I think that
was maybe one of it. I mean, it was just really complicated product, but it was also hard to get
people to use it if you're building product first. So yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. I just
can't imagine falling in that same scenario. Cause I'm just not like, I don't know. I just,
I'm in no danger of doing that. It's another reason not to build a to-do list staff because
then you're like, all right, well, I've got to catch up to all these other to-do list apps that
have like a thousand features. So I've got three years of code that I need to write before I can
charge it on. And there's people listening who have successful to-do list apps.
I'm imagining someone listening right now, as they're coding their to-do list,
and they're like, shit, side-eye, side-eye. And it's not just to-do list apps, to be fair.
It's just very attractive to founders to build and try to sell these inexpensive,
very code intensive apps, especially as a developer. And your advantage was kind of
almost like your lack of confidence in your development skills.
Yeah, I know. It's like literally it was like a blessing.
Your energy, like your desire to spend your time talking to people.
I know. And this is, it's so full circle that you were like, I don't know if you're going to like
coding. Cause it's so, I mean, I definitely, even when I was coding a lot, I was still super social.
And I think it's like, that's just what I'm good at. And so in general, I think that people should
build things where they're at their strengths. And even if coding is your strength, you should
definitely be aware of building something like what that, if you're really good at coding,
what that means is you could build a simple product so much better than all the other people
building a simple product, but don't go and spend three years in your room by yourself
building this product. That's beautiful that no one ever sees.
I think your, I think your, your progress in 2018, it speaks for itself.
You went from making $0 a month at the very beginning of 2018.
Doing about 80 K a quarter. Yeah.
To 80 K a quarter. What are some of the bigger milestones in that process?
Oh my goodness. I'm like, my memory is so bad. First renewal. That was big. I think every time
I placed an engineer that was super huge. It's so fun to celebrate with a company. They're like,
we found an engineer who found us through key values. Thank you so much. They're wonderful.
Like that, those every single time that felt like a huge milestone. I think there's, I'm so like
thinking about sales that I can't help but look through this lens. One of the sales milestones,
like aha moments I had was just to actually jump on the phone and like talk to people and sell
before, as I said before, I was just sending these emails and there was this whole question
I remember during YC was like, should you have a pricing page? I think there was a lot of,
I had, someone had a really strong opinion that I should make key value self-serve.
And I think there was like this moment of realizing that if it's a complicated or not even if it's
complicated, if it's a product that people don't get right away, it's not obvious. Key
values is not obvious. It's like, is it a job board? Is it employer branding? I'm so confused.
Are you an ATS, which is an applicant tracking system? Like people were not so clear. It's like
jump on the phone, ask them, have them tell you what their problems are and then tell them how
specifically your product can solve those pain points and then mention pricing. So I think that
was just like a huge, that was like, once I figured that out, it was like literally like a switch.
Sales were just going so much easier. Raising prices was a huge milestone, I suppose. I mean,
it's all, yeah. Tell us about that process. How did you raise your prices? Yeah, I, it was, I just
like started saying a higher number. And I remember in the beginning, like in the middle of the sales
call, I'd be like, okay, I like had like a Google Doc open. It's like, say $5,000 a year, say $6,000
a year. I'd be like nervous, nervous. And then they would say something. And I was just like,
right as I was saying the sentence right before I said the dollar amount, I'd be like, it's um,
three, it's, it's $3,000. I would just like go back and like backpedal again. And so it was,
it was just like, it's just a confidence thing. And then eventually I think I started talking
to companies and I had a, I have a sales gurus, what I like to call him Danny. He definitely
coached me a lot. And he was just like, say a big number. You can always come down. If anything,
companies like to hear that they give discounts. So like say 10,000, if they're like, see the,
look at it's video call, see, judge their face. Some companies are like, okay, yeah,
sounds normal. In which case you're like, good thing you said 10,000. And if they're like,
they like make a, they pause a lot or anything, like work down from there, get like, you know,
if you give them a discount, ask for something. So this is another thing. Like if you're like
going to give a discount, don't do it for free. If make it instead of 10,000, like, okay, well,
I'll make it 9,000. If you promise to, you know, do a case study at the end of this,
participate in a case study and also be a reference call if another company wants to talk to a
customer. And then you're like, ah, so like $8,000. And then you'll help us, you know,
you'll help me write some content or like participate in some blog, you know,
just like ask for things every time you give a discount.
I think one of the coolest things for me watching you go through this process was how much
you were not only just selling companies on the value you could provide, but also learning
about the value that you could provide while talking to them.
I know. It happens so gradually because I'm doing these calls like, you know, once a day or like
definitely at least once a week. But my pitch for key values changed so much. So like,
but it was just so gradual. I forget that that happened. Yeah. No, you, I just feel like I don't
understand why people don't do more sales. Because they're too busy writing code.
I know. How do you know what to build if you aren't talking to people who are buying it or
going to use it? And I think just hearing companies tell me what their pain points were,
talking to existing customers and asking them like what's working, what's not,
like I learned so much about my own product that I didn't even point,
like there are use cases that I didn't even consider when I started.
I remember one of the ones that stood out to me was that companies were
basically like sending their profile out to engineers as sort of like a...
As their outbound outreach emails. Yeah. And just so you know, like recruiters see
anywhere like single digit percentage of response rates, including the ones that are no.
And there's a company, they started, they're experimenting, they started using,
linking to their key values profile and their outbound outreach emails,
like making their emails much shorter and like just letting, letting engineers opt
into all this information. And they have a 47% response rate.
Isn't that crazy? Like 47% response rate for cold outbound emails. That is wild. Like for any,
even for me reaching out cold outreach, like that'd be huge response rate.
So yeah, I was like, that's a use case I didn't even think about before. And talking to my
customers helps me learn the value of my own product.
So we've been going for an hour and 15 minutes here.
Oh, not bad.
We're just going to keep going.
Because we're like, we've got a lot left to learn, I think.
And I want to keep talking about this progression of your sales and sort of analyze
why it worked, why you succeeded where a lot of other people have trouble.
I look at your customers list right now on key values. You've got a lot of high profile
customers. You've got companies like Gusto paying for key values. You've got Entercom,
Coinbase, Medium is a key value customer, Ease, Nerd Wallet, Webflow.
These can't have all been companies that you had friends at. How did you find these companies
and get them interested in what you were doing?
Out of all the ones that you just listed, I think those were literally all inbound.
I'm trying to like going through the companies you just listed. But yeah, there are... So
all the companies that at this point, like all my sales are inbound, which is great.
And yeah, it's just like jumping on the phone with them and understanding what their pain points
were. I mean, these customers, the ones that you just listed came at different time points.
How does that happen? How do these big companies hear about you and reach out and ask you,
can I get in key values? I'm curious about the whole process. How do they first hear about you?
What is the process like for them to even get in touch? Where do they go on your website?
What do you say?
Yeah, no, it's interesting. Because actually, I was just thinking, you and I talk about a lot
of stuff, key values related. But since you aren't a sales expert, you never had to do sales
for indie hackers or any of your businesses. That's not true. I did sales for advertising
for any hackers. That was also a lot of time on the phone. But I'm not a sales expert. You're
right. So I feel like it's just funny because we don't talk about it as much because it's not
like your domain. But yeah, so first thing that's cool is that every time I jump on a
call, the first question I ask is like, how did you come across key values? And it's so awesome.
And like the most rewarding thing to hear that most of the time, it's like one of our engineers
or our engineering managers came across it and sent it to us or sent it to me. Sometimes I'm
talking to the CTO and they're like, I saw it. I don't even know where I saw it. I think someone
tweeted about it. Then I saw it on Hacker News. And then someone else sent it in the Slack channel.
And I was like, so people are just seeing it. And then the other cool thing is there's like,
I don't know, maybe one out of six or seven calls. Someone's like, if I'm talking to a recruiter,
they're like, actually, we were interviewing this engineer and they asked us why we weren't
on key values. And that's how we heard about it. We were like, what is this thing? We feel
bad that we're not on it because we're trying to close this person. And so that's been really cool
because it means I'm reaching the right people. Yeah. What's interesting is that like ultimately
I'm serving this two-sided marketplace, but engineers that are looking for jobs end up
finding jobs. And then when they're at a company that isn't on key values, they're a champion for
key values. And then when I work with companies, I always work really, really closely with the team
to create the content. And oftentimes it's a handful of engineers. Like I work with engineering
managers, whatever. And now that I've been doing this for almost two years, sometimes those people
leave those companies and they're like, hey, you know, I remember when we chatted, like I'm just
wondering if we could pick your brain or if you had like, if you want to help me make mint intros
or like, you know, then they become users on the other end. And I'm like, of course, happy for them
to use key values on the other side. So it's like this cycle or I don't know, would you call those
things again? Remember the flywheel? Flywheel. Flywheel. It's like a flywheel. I like that you
mentioned that I'm not a sales expert and so you didn't really come to me for advice for sales. And
so I've sort of, it's kind of a black box for me how your sales process works and key values. And
I think the thing that's cool about it is it's kind of a reflection on a core part of your
personality that I think makes you a more successful founder than a lot of people,
which is that you seek out help. You're a solo founder, but it's kind of like you have all of
these co-founders who are helping you build different parts of your business. And you do
this to a better degree than almost anybody that I've ever met. It's one of my core weaknesses
actually is I don't ask for help. I don't find people to help me. I just recently started doing
it. No, you're so right. Partly it's because of watching you and how effective you've been
at getting people sort of on your side to fill in the gaps. Yeah. So for example,
you briefly mentioned Danny. Who is Danny? How did he, how did you find this person?
How did he play a role in key values? So random. Danny, actually someone,
so someone that I met introduced us because of something totally unrelated. It was like,
what's it like leaving a company and just like what, how do you figure out next steps? Like
basically the soul searching career. Like how did you, you know, all the things you've been
asking me today? Like, how did you know what to do after you dropped out of grad school? How do you
know what you wanted to do after you left homejoy? And it was like, just transition questions. And
it was just like, Hey, Lynn has been through a lot of transitions. Like she's a nice person to talk
to. So we started talking and then like at the end of the hour I was like telling him about key
values and like how I'm struggling with sales. And he was like, Oh yeah, I've done like 15 years
of sales. Like I have, what kind of questions do you have? And I was like, well, like one thing
I'm working on right now is this company asked for this. I don't remember. It's like something,
something that's like not that remarkable, but you know, anyone who's doing sales,
like how do I respond to this email? Like you like obsess over every word and how you phrase things.
And then at some point, like our meeting, we had to go and I was like, you know, can I pay you just
like, I don't know, like a couple hours to sit next to me and just walk through all my emails
and like figure out my for flow. Like one question was like, should I do have a pricing page? And
without hit, like no, no hesitation. He was like, do not have a pricing page. And it was like so
funny. It was like, it's something I was grappling with for months. And like all these people had
different like, like he just knew he was like, based on what your product is, you should not have a
pricing page. So obvious. And I was like, I just was like, Oh my God, I want to keep talking to
this guy. But yeah, we ended up becoming friends. And I was like, of course, I want to compensate
him for his time and his wisdom. And yeah, that's just one example of you for sure. You know,
Cajron, Anurag of render, which now indie hackers is now hosting.
Yeah, you meet all these people who are brilliant at what they do. There's such common advice that
you should surround yourself with people who are good at things. You surround yourself with people
who are doing the things that you want to do. Like you're kind of the average of the five or 10
people that you spend the most time around. And you completely surround yourself with people who
are really impressive and smart and helpful in all these different areas. And so what they're
doing rubs off on you, if you're ever doing anything, you know, super wrong strategically,
like I'll probably comment on it, you know, if you ever do something wrong with sales,
Danny will chime in. But I mean, this is like, it's God, this is everything is so consistent.
But this is a tweet that you had not that long ago, you were like, people underestimate how much
of what your behavior is, it's just imitating people around you. And I think you were saying
like, I don't actually know why you wrote that. I don't remember what it was in response to.
I feel like you said it kind of like in a hating way, like everyone's just copying everyone.
But I was like, no, that's like, that's a superpower. Like, if it is like, you don't
even realize people don't even realize how much you just imitate people around you.
Assuming you're imitating good people, if you could surround yourself with good people,
then that's great. Just surround yourself with people you'd like to be more
like. And then naturally, just organically, everyone's a chameleon, you just end up kind
of absorbing what they do. And you just kind of become that. How do you do that? It's much easier
said than done. I'm sure a lot of people listening in can look around at their closest friends,
the people in their communities and environment, and not see a ton of people who are sort of
succeeding at the same goals that they want to succeed at. How have you been so effective at
finding people? Well, sometimes they find me, to be fair. Like, Anurag reached out to me,
someone introduced me to Kadrin, who's the founder of Alpha, and it's an all women's tech online
community. And... Well, how does that happen? Who's making these intros to you and why?
People who... I don't know. Yeah. Adora, I think, introduced me to Kadrin way back when,
when both of us were starting out building our products. Anurag just told me yesterday that
someone told him about key values, and that's how he reached out to me. But I think it's just
the power of reaching out. People, if you want to reach out to someone, just reach out to them,
send them a nice email. I mean, there's definitely an art to reaching out, doing the cold outreach.
But even on Twitter, just engage with someone. If they make a tweet, just comment, reply.
If you reply once a week, at some point, I bet you do, you notice this. Like, someone keeps
replying to you, engaging with your tweets. You're like, you just start to notice them.
And then when they reach out, it doesn't feel like they're a stranger. And it's just like,
it's natural. There's lots of people that are really smart that I meet, that we don't end up
being friends with. But I think for me, it's also like, I get excited when I meet people who are,
they have, they're like struggling with something that I can help with. And then I'm just always
been a thing. Like, I've always been a fan of bartering. I feel like anytime someone gives me
something, I want to give something back. And I apply this, it's not just, and I don't think it's
transactional. I don't know, people hate on me about this. But it's like, say anything with
friendships. If someone is a good friend to you, I want to be a good friend back. I want to show
up and be there for you when you need me the most. I want to step up. I don't know. It's just like,
I think I want to return the favor. And so it's just a natural thing of finding your people.
I think a big part of it is also just building cool stuff and putting it out there. Because
you built key values. No one else built key values. Of course, people are going to want to
get to know who you are. And you're going to meet interesting people because they think you're
interesting too. And so you just sort of glom onto each other and build up this cool network of
people. And you could have easily just never built key values or never released it. In which case,
it would have been much harder to meet interesting people. I think the second half of that equation
is it's not just about building anything, but you want to build something that works ideally.
We talked about this earlier, but you started at the problem and then you worked backwards toward
the solution. And I think if you had done what you had done in the other direction, what you would have
ended up with is probably just a job board. You would have said, I'm going to build a job board.
And you would have released that. And it would have looked no different than any of the other
10,000 job boards on the internet. And it would be much harder for you to find people, et cetera.
So I think you sort of did it the right way for meeting interesting people.
Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know. It's weird to hear your high level analysis because I just don't,
I kind of, I didn't make these, they didn't feel like decision points for me. It was just like,
this is my personality. This is what I've got. This is what I'm going to do. It didn't like,
it's just funny to hear this bird's eye view. But yeah, I think that, I mean, to be fair,
key values isn't a job board. I mean, it kind of is. I remember when we first were like,
you were helping coaching me through getting into YC. That was like my one-liner, like YC,
or my, in my application to YC, I looked at it the other day was like key values is a culture
driven job board. That was like for engineers or something like that. And I think of key values
now less and less like a job board. It's just, yeah, I think it's its own thing. Yeah. But I think
it's interesting in general, like people want to, you want to describe something that makes sense
to people. It's easy for them to understand. And I didn't realize how much me describing key values
as a job board made me mate, like colored my vision of what key values was. And then I started
like, it was just, I can't explain it, but like once I realized it was this amorphous hybrid thing
that doesn't like straddles recruiting and employer branding and kind of like a job board. I
realized like it helped me really just sell it better because I understood it. It didn't have to
like be confined to a quote unquote job board. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about key values
today. You're at a point now where you're doing over 80K in revenue per quarter. What's changed?
What are you thinking about in terms of growing in the future? I feel like you're like, this is a
little trick question here. I mean, I'm like literally in this process of deciding and like
figuring it out because, you know, once you reach your goal, you're like, okay, now what?
Well, yeah, we can even step back because we didn't even mention that like your goal,
I think a year ago, you're like, or maybe even a year and a half ago, you're like,
I want to make $300,000 a year. I mean, I'm not quite there yet. Like I want to pay myself
300K. But there's a lot of questions. I mean, I'm still figuring out, it's like a religious
question of like, what do I want this to be? I think there's a lot of like, should I scale
this? Should I hire people? Like what should I do? So I actually, you know, Danny's doing a
transition. He's doing a lot of other stuff. He's doing consulting. And I was like, oh,
do you want to spend a few hours a week helping me do sales calls? And we just started this in
January of this year. And so I hadn't been doing sales calls, but he was out of town this last
week. And I like forgot how much I love doing sales. Like it was just, just like having not
done it for a few weeks and then jumping back into it. And I had this like epiphany earlier
this week that like, I think I don't care about scaling. And it's kind of like part, I think I
knew this deep down inside. It's why I didn't want to fundraise is because I genuinely enjoy
doing this stuff. I know it sounds like crazy. It's like who likes doing, I get so much energy
doing sales. I love talking to people. I love someone being like, Oh my God, I think you're
going to really help me. Like I can't wait to work together. I'm like, me neither. Like,
let's be friends. Like in a way, I feel like key values is just, I found a way to help people
and network and make friends and also get compensated for it. I like literally that's
you like generally love what you're doing. It's pretty obvious that you do. And then there's
weeks where you're like kind of tired of stuff and you just like quit that stuff.
I just, yeah, I just like don't spend time doing stuff. Like there's so many features I could build
for key values and I want to, but I mean, first of all, they're not that high priority. They're
not make or break, but like, that's less fun to me than the, the social aspect. And like,
I love meeting these companies and helping them write their profiles. I love like connecting and
talking to the people and getting people to visit key values. And like, I like answering
questions and people have them on hacker news or indie hackers or whatever, dev.to,
hacker noon, whatever on Twitter. And yeah, the social part finally gets to live. And I definitely,
yeah, I do like coding and actually miss coding, but it's definitely not, you know, I just, you
just do what you're excited about. Yeah, I think it goes back to why you had such a hard time in
YC because there's kind of this school of advice that falls under a circle. Let's call it what you
should do. This is what you should do if you want to grow as fast as possible or be as effective as
possible. And then there's like, what do you want to do? Like what makes you enjoy running your
business and you consistently choose the ladder path consistently. Like I'm going to do the
business that I like doing. I don't care what I should do. And sometimes you feel tortured
because it's like, you want to get an A plus advice. You like want to, you want to follow it.
YC founder is giving you advice. You want to follow it. I know. But more so, I think you
just say, treat yourself and you just do what you want to do. Yeah. No, I actually had this
another revelation earlier this week. This week was big week in that I think that after dropping
out of grad school, like I realized, so when I dropped out of grad school, I felt fucking scared.
I had spent six, seven, eight years building towards this dream. Like this, I was very outcome
focused. I was like, I, this is my destination. I want to be a professor. And then leaving that
it's like, fuck, I'm starting from scratch. I'm 24, 25. Like I literally can't lean on any of my
previous experience. I'm like, it's just scary to start over and you're like, feel so behind.
I feel so behind behind everyone else. But I think that kind of like, in a way freed me.
And now I know it's like, there's no time to waste doing shit you're not excited about.
Like there's just like, so I, there's this article, I shared it with you earlier. It's
just like being focused on the process rather than the outcome. Not only is it like less fun
focusing on the outcome, but yeah, it's something that I learned a long time ago. However,
I'm just still, it's like a fragile focus. And if I'm around other people, since I'm so extroverted
and just like absorb everyone's energy, I have to like be really careful about who I'm spending
time with. Cause I do, I do get caught up. Like if everyone, if there's, if five people walked in
here and they were like so excited about opening up a bakery, I would no doubt start getting
excited and be like, oh my gosh, should I help? Should I like Cortland? Should we like open a
bakery too? Should we help them open this bakery? Like I'm not even kidding. And it's kind of crazy.
I'm just like super excitable. But because of that, like YC was just way, it was like.
Yeah. I think the phrase when you're going through YC that I under the most was Lynn focus.
Someone help me. Yeah. Focus. Yeah. So I mean, that's the other thing. Like I know I'm really
extroverted and social, but that's also why I prefer to physically work alone a lot of the
time because it helps me focus. Well, what about on a personal note? I mean, getting to the point
where you're making $300,000 a year and like hitting this milestone that like at some point
you consider it almost impossible, like a distant, distant future. What does that feel like? It's
funny, I think so. Uh, I don't think we've talked about this at all, but as you know, when I started
key values, I, like, I literally had like a little mini life crisis when it happened and I was like,
okay, what are my goals and looking for new job, blah, blah, blah. But I started key values at the
same time as me, as I decided to do an Ironman. Cause yeah, long story short, I was like, what
are my dreams? What I want to do? Like, you know, if I died in 10 years, like what do I want to,
what do I want to accomplish? And so the, an Ironman for the, I don't even know if you know,
it's 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles biking. And then you run a full marathon, which is 26.2 miles.
And I remember when I started thinking about it, I was like, I'm not sure I physically can do this.
And it wasn't a confidence issue. It's just like realistically I've had injuries, like my,
the sneeze problem. I don't know if I can physically do it, but when I did, it was like
cool to look back just a few months ago at something I genuinely thought was impossible
and feel like that was nothing. Let's do it again. And I think I've just kind of borrowed,
like I apply that to key values. And so there's like, there's nothing that's impossible. Honestly,
it is not impossible for me to make a million dollars a year or even 10. Like maybe I'd raise
money, maybe I won't. It's definitely possible. It's just the question of do I want to do that?
Well, we've been going for an hour and a half now. I'm sure people have got stuff to do.
It's been super fun to actually have you on the podcast and walk through all the things that make
you like a special person and you make your business such a cool success. I probably reference
key values and giving advice to other people more than any other company. I tell people to charge
more and then I point, I tell them exactly what your finances are. I try to get them to do a much
better job. So I think your story is an inspiration. What do you think people listening in who are
maybe considering starting a company or taking their first steps, what do you think they should
draw from your story in order to be more successful? Two things. First, don't build a to-do list app.
Well, I'm kidding, but I'm actually probably not kidding. But the main thing I was just saying is
be good at asking for advice. I learned this the hard way. I think, I mean, perfect example is
during YC, I would ask for advice without first prefacing it with what my goals are and what my
circumstances are. So instead of asking, how do I start a business or what's a good idea, frame it
with some other things. How do I start a side business as a full-time employee? Be more specific.
If you're a parent, if you have kids, maybe you should mention that. If you don't know how to code,
how do I start a profitable side business as someone who doesn't know how to code and only
has time on the weekends? That's a much more specific question and you'll get answers that are
much more relevant to you than just asking, how do I start a company? So I think being good at
asking for advice and then the hard part, which I'm still working on too, is being good at filtering
that advice. And ultimately, there's a lot of things that, there are no wrong, I guess there
is bad advice, but sometimes there's multiple pieces of advice that are different and they're
all good. And instead of thrashing and figuring out which one's the better one, it's really just
a question of what you want and you should filter it through a rubric of what you enjoy doing,
what's going to... How do you flex your own advantages, I think is my advice. Well, that's
all meta. It's all meta. Well, Lynn, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. I appreciate you.
It's so cool. I think your story is going to inspire a lot of people to start companies.
I hope it does. Yeah. And I was just going to say, I'm literally an example. I started on
IndieHackers and now I'm fucking on the podcast. Yeah, you did it. Almost an hour and 45 minutes
of podcast. Let's go get food or something. I'm exhausted. All right. Toodle doodle.
If you enjoyed listening to this conversation and you want a really easy way to support the podcast,
why don't you head over to iTunes and leave us a quick rating or even a review. If you're looking
for an easy way to get there, just go to ndhackers.com slash review, and that should open up iTunes on
your computer. I read pretty much all the reviews that you guys leave over there and it really helps
other people to discover the show. So your support is very much appreciated. In addition,
if you are running your own internet business or if that's something you hope to do someday,
you should join me and a whole bunch of other founders on the ndhackers.com website.
It's a great place to get feedback on pretty much any problem or question that you might have
while running your business. If you listen to the show, you know that I am a huge proponent
of getting help from other founders rather than trying to build your business all by yourself.
So you'll see me on the forum for sure, as well as more than a handful of some of the guests that
I found on the podcast. If you're looking for inspiration, we've also got a huge directory
full of hundreds of products built by other indie hackers, every one of which includes revenue
numbers and some of the behind the scenes strategies for how they grew their products
from nothing. As always, thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.